Amazon, Novo Nordisk partner on AI-driven drug discovery

There’s a new addition to a long list of partnerships between technology companies and healthcare companies.

Wegovy -maker Novo Nordisk announced on Aug. 10 it has expanded its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). As part of this partnership, the two companies have created a joint drug development innovation hub in London. There, Novo’s R&D teams will work alongside AWS engineers, AI specialists, and applied scientists, “eliminating the gaps between scientific insight and technical execution,” according to an AWS press release.

“Partnering with AWS is about making AI a driver of innovation across Novo Nordisk,” Mike Doustdar, president and CEO of Novo Nordisk, said in a press release.

One of many. This announcement comes after Novo announced a partnership with OpenAI to accelerate drug discovery in April. Eli Lilly, Novo’s main competitor in the GLP-1 space, has teamed up with Nvidia to build a supercomputer, and another major biopharma, Merck, has collaborated with Nvidia and Google Cloud in the interest of AI-fueled drug discovery.

Amazon, too, is racking up healthcare partnerships. The company offers tools ranging from patient-facing AI assistants to Amazon Bio Discovery, an AI-assisted drug discovery platform announced in April.

AI and drug development. It makes sense that drug companies and tech companies see an opportunity to improve the development process.

It takes an average of 10 to 15 years and $2.6 billion to develop a new medicine and get it to market, drug industry trade group PhRMA estimated in 2022.

However, despite widespread interest and investment in AI-driven drug discovery, some say the technology hasn’t yet delivered on its promise. 

“Although a wide variety of AI methods have been developed, applied, and benchmarked, evidence of their clinically relevant impact is, so far, disappointingly limited,” reads an Aug. 7 perspective article published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.